


Taking a sick day

by WafflesnRizzles



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A true fluff fest, F/F, Part of SQ fanon 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 02:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6782017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WafflesnRizzles/pseuds/WafflesnRizzles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma Swan is convinced that the intransigent Mayor Mills needs to take a sick day. Fluff ensues. A SQ oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking a sick day

**Author's Note:**

> March 14: Who is more likely to be absolutely intolerable when they’re sick? How about when the other is sick or gets hurt? How do they look after each other?

Regina Mills did not get sick. She did not get sick and she most certainly did not miss work. Which is why, right now, she was trying desperately—with as much poise as could be expected from a former Queen—to get past the stubborn as all hell Savior, who was blocking her way to the car. 

“Miss Swan!” Regina shouts imperiously, her long, manicured fingers settled angrily on her hips. Her deep red lips were pursed partly in anger and mostly in frustration. On a normal day the blonde was insufferably irritating, but today, well—she had reached new heights. Or new lows, as it may be. 

“Regina. Henry called me over saying you were sicker than ‘Dr. Whale at a lesbian bar.” At this, Regina shot Emma a withering look, as if to say he’s your inappropriate son at this moment. “You gotta admit, that was pretty spot-on,” Emma defends cheekily, one dimple making an appearance with the flashing of a lopsided grin. 

The Mayor doesn’t take kindly to that, and begins indelicately shoving at Emma, who only lifts an eyebrow in response and doesn’t budge an inch. Regina really must be sick—normally she and the brunette were a decent match physically. The Queen went running five days a week, and the Sheriff liked to alternate long jogs with weight work in the Sheriff’s office. 

Which was completely inappropriate for a public official to do while being paid by the taxpayers, but what was likely more inappropriate was how their Mayor liked to watch from her office window. 

Regina’s attention was brought back to the present by Emma’s voice, “Regina. You’re like, useless currently,” Emma said, gesturing to Regina’s weak attempts at getting past her. “Go back to bed.” Emma wasn’t even certain up until that moment that she possessed a ‘parent voice.’ Apparently she did. She smiled briefly at her own internal pun. 

“No.” 

Emma sighs a long-suffering sigh. Regina sniffles loudly. 

“Have you even checked your—” Emma reaches over toward Regina’s forehead.

“Miss Swan, get your hands off me.” 

Emma mumbles something like “double-standards,” but Regina can’t quite hear it because everything is a little bit fuzzy today. 

“Fine. You want to get to work, Madame Mayor? Poof yourself there.” It was a challenge, and Regina recognized it as such, which is why it made it that much more difficult to refuse it. 

“You think I haven’t already tried that?” Regina huffs. She’s all arms-crossed and tapping feet. Emma really should be intimidated, but the bags under Regina’s watery eyes and the way she is discreetly trying to sniffle without alerting Emma are just too damned pathetically cute. 

“I might be slightly under the weather, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be marginally productive today. Unlike some people.” 

Was that a low blow? Regina insulted her so often that, really, she was pretty much immune to it at this point. She never understood why the townspeople always got so riled up by her constant barbs. It was a defense mechanism: a rather incisive and oftentimes witty one. Emma actually found that she enjoyed them on most days. 

“Wipe that smile off your face, Sheriff,” Regina growls. “Don’t you have work to do?” She asks, checking the watch on her left wrist. It was now 9:03—eight minutes past the time she liked to be in the office. 

“Right now you, Regina, are my business. This town can’t run very long without you.” Pleased that Regina wasn’t immediately fighting her on this, she continued. “Now, I’m going to make you some of that golden milk stuff you make for Henry when he’s sick and you’re going to lay down and watch reruns of Jeopardy! and Seinfeld.” 

Regina narrows her eyes, but, surprisingly, spins on her heel and retreats to the kitchen. 

Emma follows with a bright smile. She’s pretty sure she’s the only person in Storybrooke who could get the former Queen to stay home from work. Even Henry had failed. Emma will take small victories like this over beating dragons and evil any day. 

“What’s in there?” Regina asks warily, eyeing the Enchanted Gardens Organic Foods store cloth bag Emma had been holding the entire twenty minutes they had been fighting. 

“Goodies,” Emma responds. She begins pulling out all sorts of things: thermometers, heating pads, medicines of all types, cough drops, nasal strips, tissues—

She throws the tissues at Regina, who gratefully catches the box with a nasally ‘Thank Gods.’

Emma has to turn away to hide her smile as the Mayor blows her nose with an undignified squelch and snort. There was something so endearing about seeing the usually perfect Mayor so human. 

She continues unpacking: teas, chocolates, a Tupperware with soup, bread, cheese, bananas, cookies… 

Regina is impressed and mildly concerned. She hides a cough behind a demure throat-clearing. “Are you moving in, Miss Swan?” 

Emma shrugs her shoulders sheepishly. “Henry said you were sick, but I was sure which kind of sick, so I sort of just grabbed everything I could think of and rushed over.” 

Regina tries and fails to keep a look of adoration off her face. It was a look she usually reserved only for Henry, but it was becoming more and more directed at her son’s mother as well. 

Emma pulls out a small pot and begins heating up some almond milk. She begins adding turmeric, ginger, cayenne pepper and honey, stirring the mixture slowly with a wooden spoon. She had seen Regina make this concoction for Henry dozens of times now, but she had never made it before herself. Emma looks at Regina for confirmation. The brunette tiredly nods, a small smile still ghosting her features. 

“Bed,” Emma commands. 

“I’m fine right here,” is the response. 

Emma releases a long-suffering sigh and continues stirring the milk. This was going to be a long day. 

Still, it was marginally better being able to be with the Mayor rather than being stalked by her as she weight-lifts in the Sheriff’s office. 

Not that she minds. 

She flexes her arms slightly, knowing the Mayor is behind her, likely staring. “What if I call Carrie and ask her to collect whatever files you need and I’ll bring them over for you?” 

Regina huffs at this, displeased with the thought of her caretaker leaving, even for just a little while. “Honestly, I’d think your magic is plenty advanced by now. You could just magic them here.”

Emma smiles again, completely able to see through the brunette’s bluster. She was wanted here. The thought of taking care of Regina all day, watching Regina get all the answers right on Jeopardy! and having to check her temperature occasionally didn’t sound bad at all. 

“Couch or bed?” Emma asks, pouring the frothy concoction into a large mug. 

“My bed is far superior to the couch for an entire day of indolence,” Regina answers. Her lips are pursed in distaste at the idea, but Emma already knows she’s caved. 

“Bed it is, then. Lead the way, Madam Mayor.” Emma grabs the cookies on her way out of the kitchen—what’s a whole day in bed without plenty of sugar? 

When she gets to Regina’s bedroom, the blonde pauses briefly in hesitation. She had never entered this hallowed space, and she was marginally disappointed that it wasn’t under different circumstances that she was about to cross the threshold. 

When she finally enters, Regina is wearing a pair of dark blue silky pajamas and her face is scrubbed free of makeup. She looks haggard: eyes puffy, skin pallid, nostrils flaring with light sniffles. 

She is beautiful. 

Emma hands her the mug and cookies before looking at the other side of the large bed awkwardly. She wasn’t exactly invited to stay, and as she was wearing her usual tight jeans, tank top and leather jacket, she wasn’t sure if she was allowed in. 

“There’s a pair of your sweatpants in the bottom left drawer,” Regina huffs. She takes a sip of the milk and sighs in pleasure. Emma sputters slightly. 

Sure enough, one of her favorite pairs of sweatpants is sitting, neatly folded, in the drawer. Along with an assorted collection of socks, t-shirts and other articles of clothing she must have left at the mansion at one time or another. Huh. 

When she returns from the bathroom, Emma finds Regina already engrossed in a rerun of Seinfeld. She coughs lightly in greeting to the blonde, who cautiously slides between sinfully soft sheets. 

It’s about two episodes of Seinfeld later that Regina is curled up beside Emma, who is stroking her back as she rides through coughing fit after coughing fit. 

An episode of Jeopardy! later has Regina fitfully rolling around in a sleepy daze, breathing heavily through her mouth and occasionally coughing herself awake. 

It’s about lunchtime that she rolls over and says I love you with a soft, hazy smile and a long nuzzle to Emma’s side. 

It’s about dinnertime, when Regina wakes up with a jolt shouting, “Grenada!” which was the correct answer to Final Jeopardy that Emma realizes she’s hopelessly in love with the brunette, too.


End file.
